Shedeur Sanders received plenty of criticism ahead of the 2025 NFL Draft, ranging from negative reports on his pre-draft interviews to the controversial involvement of his father, Deion. Even so, football fans didn’t expect the Colorado Buffaloes legend to slide all the way down to the fifth round.
Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports recently reported on Shedeur’s effort – or lack thereof – in certain pre-draft meetings with teams across the league. The NFL insider revealed that Shedeur essentially sabotaged his meetings with teams that he didn’t want to end up with in the draft, putting forth a lack of effort that rubbed the entire league the wrong way.
“This is a repudiation by the NFL of how Shedeur Sanders and those around him handled the entire NFL draft process … At some of those [combine] meetings with certain teams that maybe Shedeur Sanders didn’t really want to go to, didn’t see himself going to for any number of reasons,” Jones said. “I was told that he more or less sandbagged in those interviews ... I don’t know if he didn’t take them seriously, what it was, but he did not give it his all in some of those interviews. Rubbed some teams the wrong way."
Based on these reports, Shedeur displayed a lack of professionalism that cost him millions of dollars in salary. The Cleveland Browns took a chance on the enigmatic signal-caller with the No. 144 pick, but recent rumblings suggest that Shedeur may not even make the final roster after training camp.
On top of his pre-draft sandbagging, Shedeur already gained more negative attention when Deion retired his jersey just months after the end of his Colorado career. The April 19 jersey retirement of Shedeur and former teammate Travis Hunter sparked justified shock and frustration from former Buffs legends and football fans as a whole.
Former Colorado linebacker and team captain Michael Jones, who played for the Buffs from 1987 to 1989, talked to USA TODAY Sports about the jersey retirement and referred to it as “completely asinine.”
Shedeur will hopefully leave some of his pre-draft drama behind him as he embarks on his NFL journey. Having some space from Coach Prime to grow and mature may be just what the young quarterback needs.